


Good Things Come in Threes

by Datawolf39



Category: The Dead Zone
Genre: Conffessions, Figured it could have a home here as well, Happy Ending, John is sorta an idiot but that's okay, Sarah is lucky to have them, Walt is understanding, also posted on ffn, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 15:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13999116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Datawolf39/pseuds/Datawolf39
Summary: Johnny figures out that he has been nursing some feelings for Walt, so he distances himself. Walt and Sarah confront him about it.





	Good Things Come in Threes

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, I rewatched episodes like Plague, and the one where John keeps having visions of his accident, before he can save the little girl, and I'm sure there are others, but in both Walt hugs him, and in other episodes they just play so well off of each other, and I can't help noticing the chemistry. That is the origin of this story.

The emotions have always been there, lurking just beneath the surface, just below the line of consciousness, he only starts to realize when, one day he thinks to himself, 'I would risk my life for him.'

He would, and often did, use his powers to help anyone that he could, but there are few people that he would willingly sacrifice his life for. JJ, Sarah, Walt, and Bruce. That's his complete list, if a situation arose, and it was his life or theirs, he would be the one to make the sacrifice. JJ is his son, and he would be a right bastard if he didn't protect him, and Bruce is a godsend, the best friend that anyone could ask for, many would have long ago abandoned him and his weirdness, but Bruce stood strong by his side and he had a feeling that it had altered the very course of his life. Sarah is, well she is special, always had been and always would be, she is the road he would have taken if he could have. 

Walt is the one on that list that surprises him the most, because any other person in his situation would not be so friendly with the one that has all that would have been theirs, yet he not only accepts the situation as it is, he works with the man on a daily basis, and is willing to risk his own life for the chance of saving his. He shows himself that, when he saves Walt after the episode in the mine shaft happened.

At first John thinks that this is because Walt is Sarah's husband, and he knows he would do whatever it takes to keep her happy, because how could he not, when he loves her so much. Then he starts to spend time alone with Walt at home, his and Walt's, and during outings with JJ, learning about his past, not through flashes and images rolling about in his dead zone, but through actual conversation. He learns about old friends, favorite colors, and other information one generally knows about close friends, and realizes just how good a man Walt is. To be friends with a man when you hated him for what he could do to your family,and what a family it was at risk, well that takes a special type of person.

Then one day, watching a game together, hockey this time, with his team up several points, and the bowl of popcorn empty, John looks deeper into those feelings. Understands that Walt is no longer just 'the sheriff' in his mind, and in that moment he understands the feelings for what they are, and what they mean. He decides, right then that he needs to withdraw, to pull himself away from the Bannermans before he inevitably ruins what little happiness he has managed to acquire and ruins the happiness his friends have built together.

~

“Hey Sarah, have to talked to John lately?” Walt asks as he helps his wife with the dishes.

“No, is something wrong?” she responds, placing a plate in the dish tray.

“Nah, just haven't heard from him since a couple weeks ago, normally, he'd pop by the station at least a few times a week, but he's been out of touch for a while.”

Sarah frowned. “Have you talked to Bruce?”

Walt shrugged. “Yeah, I called him today, he says John's been distant even to him, and that outside of therapy sessions he has been completely withdrawn.”

Sarah looked at the clock. It was only six-thirty. “Do you want to drive over? We could call Kelsy to babysit.”

It's funny, Walt muses, how much he worries for a man that, by all rights, he should want nothing to do with, however, there is just something about John that garners sympathy, and he can't help worrying about him. “Yeah, give her a call, I'll finish up here.”

By seven, they are at the house and Sarah is letting them in with the spare key that John gave her for emergencies. They tried to call ahead, but he hadn't picked up the phone, that had done nothing to alleviate their worry. He must be home though because his car was in the driveway.

“Johnny?” Sarah calls after she puts in the security code. She takes in the dimly lit rooms on the ground floor and surmises that he isn't downstairs.

Walt nods his head towards the stairs and Sarah nods and follows. 

They find him when they look into his room, and they see that he is asleep. They almost turn around and leave, but then they notice how ragged his breathing is. Walt turns on the lamp that is atop the bedside table and they notice how pale he looks, as though, he hasn't eaten or slept well for quite some time. There is a startling, unsettling, undefined increment of time, where they fear that he is falling back into a sleep he won't wake from. Neither of them can think the word, and another moment of worry later, and Sarah is the one to shake him awake, however, if she hadn't done it when she did, Walt would have. They needed him to be okay.

“Walt? Sarah?” he mumbles as though he is unsure that they are in fact there. His hand reach out to touch Sarah, because she is in front of Walt, but then he pulls it back. 

It startles them both that he has noticed Walt first, considering their history and the fact that Sarah is the one that is the closest, in more than one sense, to him. It's only then that Walt starts to wonder if John has pulled away from them because of something that he had done. He quickly looks back on the last day that he had been with John, a seemingly ordinary day that happened weeks ago, and nothing stands out to him. Had he given Johnny a bad vision or something?

A few moments later, once John is a little more lucid, he turns away and buries himself in his blankets. “You shouldn't be here, neither of you.” His voice is muffled, but the words are easily understood by both Walt and Sarah.

That was a dismissal if ever they had heard one and Walt winced. Sarah, Walt had learned during the years that he had known her, did not like being ordered around, especially when someone that she cared about was in some type of trouble.

“Johnny, you have five seconds to start telling me why you've holed yourself into your house,” Sarah said in a tone Walt heard her use on JJ when he had done something wrong, and on himself when he had forgotten something important, usually a family function or an anniversary. 

By the way John jumped, Walt was certain, that at some point, whether pre or post coma, although, it could have possibly been both, he had been on the receiving end of that tone before.

He saw the man swallow and start to get out of the bed. “Downstairs, we'll talk downstairs.” his voice   
was resigned and fearful, and Walt felt his concern for the other man grow and one look at Sarah showed that she felt similarly.

Soon they were seated on John's couch, and he was seated in a chair that was facing them. “This... what I have to say will cause trouble, but... please... if nothing else, just let me continue to spend time with JJ.”

Sarah and Walt exchanged worried glances with one another.

“John, I'm sure that there is nothing that you have done that would make us refuse to let you see JJ.” Walt said in an attempt to lessen the worry that the other man was feeling.

John laughed bitterly, switching his cane from hand to hand to give himself something to concentrate on. This was the problem, both of them were far too good. Sarah was so easy to love and Walt was too hard to hate. 

“So,” John starts with a tone of forced cheer, “you've just woken from a six year long nap, and suddenly, you find you have psychic abilities and the woman you love is married to another man, a very good man, and they are raising your kid together. You think, well, time has passed and I need to move on and you try really hard to do that. Problem is, no matter what you do, you can't stop thinking about her and what might have been; what could have been if some driver hadn't ran you off the road or if you hadn't left her that night. You really want to hate the husband, but the closes you ever manage is jealousy, you find you can't hate him because he stepped up to the plate when you weren't able, and he's such a genuinely good person that you can't help liking him. 

“Then life goes and gets more complicated because, although, you never played for that team, you realize that your attracted to the husband too. Now, of course, you consider that maybe this is just some overflow of emotion because of your feelings for the woman which had not lost their potency in the slightest, or that maybe one to many visions of their relationship has caused some kind of psychic overflow, but no, that is not the case, and when you notice this you feel like a right bastard. It's one thing to love the woman, because she was your first everything, so how can you not love her? But then to go and start liking the husband too, well that's wrong on so many levels, least of which, is that they are married. 

“Despite this, you fantasize, you don't act on it, you never could betray their trust like that, not again, it's not worth it, but you want to act on the fantasies and that makes it worse, knowing that you can never have what you want, and that you might lose contact with the little human you helped create because of your selfish feelings. So you decide that it is best to cut your loses and just fade away, get out of their way and let them be happy. You consider moving, but your life is here, everything you care about is here, and you are helping people here, even if none of that were true, there is nowhere else that you could ever feel you belong, so where would you go? Even worse, you realize just how isolated you have become since you woke up, and how few people you can actually call friends, so you just lay on your bed day after day and think about what you should do. Before you know it weeks have passed with you hardly noticing. 

“Then, because they are people who are far too good, and care far too much, about people who are not worth it at all, they come over to your house to make sure that you're okay. Given those emotions and that situation what do you do?” 

John didn't even look up when he was done speaking, not wanting to see the twin looks of disgust and anger, that he was sure was displayed on their faces. He could only hope that they would still let him see JJ from time to time. That somehow, despite this awkward situation that he had placed them in, there would be some type of silver lining.

“Well if I knew this person I would definitely tell them that they are worth worrying about. After all, they seem like a really good person who is just trying to make the best of a very confusing situation,” Sarah said quietly.

Walt cleared his throat. “If I could say something to the person I would tell them that the situation has an answer that could work for all of them. The husband, I'm sure, given the unusual circumstances, and his own feelings, would propose a tentative solution where the husband and wife opened their marriage to the person in question. See the husband knows that the wife will never truly lose her love for that other person,” here it seemed that Sarah wanted to somehow deny that, but Walt shook his head, it had been hard, but he had come to terms with that reality.

“The thing is I think he understands why. He thinks that it might be possible for him to reciprocate the other person's feelings too, because he's become aware that there is something growing between them with every case they solve together. Time and time again he sees the person go through so much pain for the sake of others, and more and more often he wants to be a shelter from that pain. He doesn't want the person to stop using their abilities to help, but he no longer wants them to suffer alone with the residual pain after helping other people. Naturally, they'd have to discuss it, find out where the boundaries are, but I'm sure he would much rather gain a partner than continually fear the loss of his wife.”

John began to shake as though he was cold, but the temperature was not the issue, the shaking was the physical manifestation of trying to bottle up the emotions that were doing their utmost to be expressed. Still, he refused to look up knowing that it would only make his struggle harder, because there were only three options he could see regarding what Walt had said. The first was that Walt was oblivious regarding who they were talking about, which, admittedly, did not seem plausible; lying, which was more likely, and the third option, was so tempting that he could hardly think it, the third option was that Walt was offering him a chance at something more precious than the holy grail. “You know who I'm talking about right?” he couldn't help asking.

“Yeah, John, I hate to break it to you, but the oddly specific length of the coma destroyed any subtlety you tried to give the situation, ” Walt said with a lightness of tone that seemed completely genuine, despite the weight of their conversation.

It was only then that John looked up, and Walt could see that there were tears in the man's eyes. Acting on instinct, he reached out and pulled him into a hug, when exactly, his first instinct had become to hug the other man, he was unaware. For a moment, he feared he had overstepped a boundary or that he had given the John a vision of an unsavory future, because John was stiff in his grip. Then, before Walt could pull back, the man melted into the hug, and lifted his own arms to return the embrace. 

“Can you stay? We don't have to do anything, I just, I don't want to wake up alone.” John whispered. Neither Walt nor Sarah had any trouble hearing what he didn't say, That he wanted them to stay because he was scared that he would wake up to find that this had all been a dream.

“I'll call Kelsy,” Sarah said.

~

The next morning John woke crushed between Sarah and Walt. All three of them had stripped into their undergarments, under the excuse that it was quite warm in the room. He locked hands with both of them and smiled at the benign vision he received of them eating bowels cereal around the island in the kitchen. 

He wasn't sure how this was going to work yet, because this situation was odd no matter how you looked at it, but the important thing was that they would make it work together, all three of them, and for the first time since he woke from his coma, he finally felt complete.


End file.
